


Booze Don’t Need No Buddy

by wildglitterwolf



Series: Booze Don't Need No Buddy AU [1]
Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Acid Tripping, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Suicidal Thoughts, stubborn idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 04:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildglitterwolf/pseuds/wildglitterwolf
Summary: It’s the last night before Rick and Cliff part ways and Cliff decides to smoke that acid dipped cigarette.AU where the Manson Family doesn’t attack them but Rick still has to deal with Cliff tripping.
Relationships: Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton
Series: Booze Don't Need No Buddy AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550677
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Booze Don’t Need No Buddy

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to do an AU of that night but couldn’t decide to do it where no one got attacked or have the original history play out and see how the boys react to that. I decided to do both and was just going to write two different endings to the first half of this fic but had a change of plans on execution. For now no one gets murdered as far as anyone in the story is concerned.

“Hippie girl, 50 cents.... Tonight the night? Why not?”

_Not like I’ll be here tomorrow night, anyways._

Cliff didn’t even bother telling Rick he was taking Brandy for a walk or that when he returns he might be in the middle of tripping. It would have been pointless anyways over the sound of the blender going. Sometimes Cliff wondered if that thing was really Rick’s true love; the way he worked that blender was like he was fucking it. Maybe Francesca should be jealous. 

_Maybe I should have been more jealous the nights he chose drinking over me._

No, he can’t blame Rick for not being a damn mind reader. Why would he realize Cliff was trying to drop hints that he’d wish to spend extra time with him after dropping him off? At first it was specifics; anything from asking if he needed help with choosing tomorrow’s wardrobe, wanted to watch the game together, or saying he had to finish a chore but needed Rick’s input first. Anything to stay and not be sent back to that lonely prison of a trailer. Sometimes Rick would take the bait while others he would just smile and decline, thinking he was doing a favor by giving Cliff time away from him. Cliff never showed that the opposite was true. 

Eventually the nibbles started to decrease to the point that Cliff gave up the effort of trying to think up any new scenarios until it just became ‘You gonna need me for anything else?’ _Or are you just caging your dog for the night until you need him tomorrow?_ And of course, the nights Rick declined his offers meant Cliff would have to make sure to spend his night sober because he knew Rick sure as hell wasn’t going to be come morning. Apparently liquor provided him more comfort and companionship than he ever could.

Oh, but on the other hand, if it was Rick doing the resquesting, not only did Cliff always accept (well, at least since his wife died he has), he over prepared beforehand. Cliff knew Rick had an episode on TV that night? Before he’s even asked if he wants to watch it he will swing by the store for a six pack and some snacks. Rick was going out of town on a quick shoot? Cliff already had a suitcase packed and Brandy in the car ready to housesit when Rick asks him without having to go back to the trailer once. Rick needed a ride to a meeting, party, audition, anything? Hell, it was usually Cliff reminding him like his own personal secretary and Cliff always kept his own calendar cleared. 

_Shit, I really do come off as an eager dog trying to please his master. It’s a damn miracle he doesn’t realize how desperate I seem or he might have tried to shake me away years ago._

Cliff suddenly realized he and Brandy have come to the bottom of Cielo Drive. Looking back up it suddenly felt like a mountain’s journey: was the acid kicking in or was this cigarette a bust? No, it just felt like returning was a huge obstacle because Cliff was wondering if it was even worth going back knowing what his fate was. Maybe he and Brandy should just keep walking further into the canyon until they get lost forever. Would anyone notice they were gone? Would anyone care? _Why the hell are you sounding like Rick, man?_

“Well girl, I don’t think this thing is working. What a waste of 50 cents.” Cliff tosses it and snuffs it out on the road as they near the house. “Man, is it hot tonight or is it just me? I hope Rick isn’t in his pool so I can maybe take a quick dip before we go. I’ll feed you first, don’t worry.”

Cliff unleashes Brandy and orders her up on the couch when they get inside. And that’s when the train finally left the station…

He wasn’t sure how long it took for him to finish opening both cans. But Brandy was a patient girl, although a bit concerned that her owner would eat her food when he started licking at it. After he made the ‘click’ to signal her over, he trades places with her and flops down on the couch and just starts laughing to himself as everything moved around him.

“Oh yeah… I was going to swim That’s right. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t. Oh, but it’s hot. Not like I’m going to sleep anyways, whoooo. Does it matter if I drown? That’ll show Rick for getting married.” Cliff didn’t realize he already mostly undressed himself by the time he was done ranting to no one and accidently rolls off the couch face first on the floor, legs tangled up in his pants. “Ouch! Damnit, my nose, owww.”

Luckily he didn’t break anything as far as he could tell. He flails around trying to kick the pants off until he’s just left in his boxers. Then the laughing starts again until it slowly turns into crying. “Fuck you, Rick Dalton. I… you know what? I’m gonna give you a piece of my mind, that’s what I’m going to do. How dare you toss me away like this.” Cliff crawls across the floor not really sure how to work his legs at the moment until he gets to the sliding door. He can see several Ricks out in his stupid floating chair, almost mocking him, as if saying this was how they’d rather spend their nights than with him. He reaches up to grab the moving door handle to pull himself up and slides the door open, stepping out into the warm August night.

“Hey, you! Rick! Yooo hooo! Stop singing and take off those headphones and listen to m-”

SPLASH

“WHAT THE FUCK?!? Jesus Christ! Cliff, is… is that YOU?!”

Cliff comes up for a big breath of air as he tries to figure out what happened. Guess he didn’t realize he was walking towards Rick and didn’t see the edge of the pool. He looks around trying to figure out where the Ricks were and sees they were all heading his direction. 

“Alright. Which one of y’all is the real Rick?” Cliff waves his pointer finger back and forth between all the Ricks, a stupid grin plastered on his face.

“Real? The fuck are you talking about? Wait. Cliff. Are you… high?”

Cliff’s eyes and smile widen as the sound of Rick’s voice helps him land his finger directly on Rick’s chest. “Found you.”

And then the two of them found themselves locked in a pathetic display of a wrestling match as Cliff kept trying to shove Rick underwater (with playful or murderous attempt, Rick wasn’t exactly sure) while Rick is trying to grab onto every part of Cliff he can get to get him off. Finally Cliff let’s go of him and stands up, giving off a really high pitched laugh as he watches Rick slump over the edge of the pool as he tries to catch his breath. 

“What. In the ever living FUCK! Was that about? F-fucking trying to m-murder me…”

Cliff giggles as he slowly sinks into the water until just his head is above the surface and starts to tread water. “Maybe I was. People said I murdered my last wife, right? So why not you?”

“Because… b-because I’m n-not your wife?” Rick watches Cliff with furrowed brows as Cliff is now slowly starting to float onto his back as he stares up at the sky, clearly entertained by whatever images his mind was creating. “Cliff… I’m sorry. S-sorry I have to let you g-go.”

The words must have fallen on Cliff’s ears as his smile quickly disappeared and returned just as fast with a laugh that sounded lace with pain. He points a finger to the sky as he tries to connect the stars by drawing imaginary lines, completely ignoring Rick. “Whoooooo, the biggest connect-the-dots ever.”

Rick slowly swims over knowing Cliff is just trying to avoid this. And maybe he should just respect his wishes since Cliff would be out of his life for the most part tomorrow. “Cliff? Talk to me,” he whispers as he puts a hand on Cliff’s shoulder. 

Cliff snarls and uprights himself as he swats Rick’s hand away. “Don’t touch me, man. Don’t try to fucking fix this. You made your choice. You made it clear well enough by.. by...” 

Nothing could prepare Rick to see Cliff Booth, the man who was his absolute rock for this past decade, completely crumble in front of him. It looked like all those years of keeping any shred of emotion bottled up exploded out of him that even Rick doesn’t think he himself was ever _this bad._ And right now Rick had absolutely no fucking clue how to handle being on the other side of the situation. 

“There, there… it’s okay. You… you wanna hug?”

Cliff took him up on the offer, flinging his arms around Rick and buries his tear soaked face in his shoulder. “Please don’t send me away. You’re the only purpose in my life. Don’t take that from me.”

“You… y-you know you can’t. Th-this isn’t an open marriage. A-and she doesn’t w-want you around, said it was already weird enough you were always there in Italy.”

“But do you want me to stay?”

Rick gives a longer pause than Cliff was hoping for which only makes him start to cry more. “Oh shit, Cliff. Of course I do. You’re my-my best friend. But I-I need to settle down. That’s what we are supposed to do, right? At this age.”

“I thought the same thing when I got married. Look how that turned out, where I am now. I couldn’t stand being around her that I turned to you for anything resembling an emotional relationship. What the hell will you do when it happens to you and I’m not there for you to escape to?”

“It won’t happen to me.”

“Why, because you love her more than me? Say that you honestly do, and I’ll drop it.”

But Rick couldn’t say it, and he knew Cliff knew he couldn’t. The silence was good enough of an answer for Cliff that he didn’t press it again. They just stood there in the water, both of them not wanting to break away from the other or say anything as in doing so would feel too final. 

Suddenly the back lights turned on causing both of them to flinch and shield their eyes. “What the hell is going on out here?” There was no mistaking who it was with that accent.

“Francesca, honey, could you turn the lights off? We can’t see shit,” Rick says as he shields his eyes with his arms while Cliff floats around behind him and shrinks down like he thinks he could hide from her.

“I do not know if I want to know what you two have been doing all night but it is past one in the morning and you have not come to bed. I’m starting to think you’d rather be with him than me.”

Cliff starts the low giggling that soon escalates into his distinct laughter. Rick panics that Cliff would out him right then and there and say it was true or something. Luckily even in his current state, Cliff had the decency not to.

“H-h-h-he’s just having a b-bad trip is all. I-I’m just trying to calm him down, okay? I-I’ll be in shortly, alright?”

Fortunately that answer satisfied Francesca and Rick waited for her to go back inside before turning back to Cliff. “I-I gotta go back inside? You think you’ll be okay?”

Cliff just lets out a short, exasperated laugh. “No. But nothing I can do about it, can I?”

“Right,” Rick says as he pats his shoulder. “Get some sleep if you can, I’m not letting you drive tomorrow until it wears off. And don’t do anything stupid, alright?” And with that, Rick leaves Cliff all alone in the pool and turns the lights off for him.

The silence was almost too peaceful. Cliff wondered if this is what death felt like; surely anything would be more inviting than this hell he was feeling. He lets himself slip under the water and opens his eyes up to the sky through this new perspective. The moving water didn’t help any as it just intensified the hallucinations he previously saw with the stars earlier. No, if he was going to go out it wouldn’t be like this. Not high as fuck in his best friend’s pool. Rick would never forgive him, and he could never forgive himself for doing that to Rick. He decides to see how long he could last before coming up for air and eventually drags himself out and dripping wet into the house.

Cliff picks up his clothes off the floor and goes to grab a towel from the bathroom to dry off. He could hear the unmistakable sound of fucking coming from behind the closed door down the hall. _Wonder whose idea was that… thanks for rubbing it in. _ The forceful slam of the door to the guest room didn’t seem to phase them like Cliff hoped it would.

“Well at least I have you, right girl?” Brandy was already lying on the bed waiting for him, head down and tail wagging sensing that her owner was feeling off since he fed her. Cliff gave her a comforting pat on the head to let her know it was okay and that she wasn't the cause of his anxiety at the moment. With a heavy sign, he changes into dry boxers and curls up under the covers, not sure if he’d get a wink of sleep between his brain not shutting off and the pounding and screaming next door. 

_Fucking actors. The both of them._

—

Cliff woke up with a groan as he tries to come to terms with what happened last night. He remembered going out with Rick and having a great time. Came home late. Right. Found that acid dipped cigarette. Now that’s when shit hit the fan. Something something… in the pool? Pool…

“Shit. Shit, I… I think I said too much, Brandy. Oh no.” Cliff sinks his face into his hands trying to convince himself he didn’t have a meltdown on Rick last night but there was no use denying it. “At least I don’t think I’m high anymore,” he says as he waves his hand in front of him to make sure. “Yup. All good there.”

He checks the clock and sees it’s only around eight in the morning. If those other two were up as late as he was and going at it, hopefully they were still asleep and he could just sneak away, never having to face either of them again as long as he lived. It was probably better that way; Cliff didn’t think he could say goodbye after what he did last night. Quietly, he changes into clean clothes and packs away everything in the room that was his that still wasn't in the luggage from Italy. Now he just had to grab Brandy’s bowl and cans and he could be on his way.

Cliff carefully opens the door and sees the one to Rick’s room is still closed. With a sigh of relief mixed with slight disappointment, he goes to the kitchen and cleans out Brandy’s bowl and grabs the extra cans in the cabinet before turning to make his way back to the guest room.

“You weren’t planning on leaving without saying good-bye, were you?”

Cliff whipped his head around and sees Rick in his robe behind the bar already working on a large drink. “Shit, man. Isn’t it a little early to be drinking? You start choosing your booze over your lady, well, it won’t go unnoticed. Trust me.”

“Were you planning to leave without saying good-bye?” Rick said with more authority. Cliff rarely heard this ‘don’t fuck around with me’ tone from him. Yeah, he might have tried to come across like that when Cliff is pulling his leg about something but it was never serious. This time he meant it.

“Yes. I was. Happy?” Cliff turns away and grabs Brandy’s leash and marches right back to the guest room and packs away her stuff. “Alright, girl. We ready to go? Off to do whatever, I guess. I have no plans. None at all.” It took a lot of effort to hold it in at his own words. He really had no path to follow or people to worry about other than himself now, and after a life of having to serve and care for others over himself, he was at a complete lost. 

Cliff found the front door wide open when he dragged his luggage out into the other room. He continued outside and found Rick casually leaning against the passenger side door of the Karmann Ghia, eyes narrowed at Cliff as he sips from his stein. 

“I see you’re not gonna let me escape that easily, huh?” Cliff says as he tosses his bag around Rick into the seat and lets Brandy in the back.

“Nope…” Rick replies as he takes another drink, keeping his eyes laser focused on Cliff. “Not until you say good-bye.”

“And what if I don’t want to, huh? Ever thought of that?” Cliff climbs into the driver's seat and slams the door behind him as he watches Rick lean further over the passenger door, stein still firmly planted at his lips. “I swear, man, I’m about to knock that damn thing from your hand.” 

“Did you love me?”

Cliff slips his aviators on before answering to help hide any betrayal of emotion in his eyes as he stares forward through the windshield. “You know I did. Do. I do.”

“Then why could you never tell me those three fucking words? And after how many years together? Go on. Say them now. ‘I love you, Rick.’”

“That’s four words.”

“See, you can’t do it. Goddamn it, Cliff. Even Francesca can do it.”

“What, is that why you married her? Because she can say shit? People say stuff all the time, don’t mean it’s actually real. Hell, you’re an actor, that’s your entire job. Saying shit that ain’t real. But me… hasn’t everything I ever done for you been out of love? Yeah, you pay me. I get that. But only because no one else will hire me. I would have still done all of this regardless. I never once turned down a request no matter how taxing and inconvenient. No matter how for granted I felt you were taking me, I still did it. But you’re a goddamn alcoholic, Rick. I should have realized a long time ago I’d never be enough for you to stop relying on it, and I don’t think Francesca will have any better luck.”

Rick scoffs. Then chuckles. Then lets out a full burst of laughter that he nearly starts crying from it. “Holy shit, Cliff. Holy shit. Did you ever fucking consider that the reason I started drinking more was actually because of you?”

“Me? You were always crying about not getting this part or whatever other frustration you had with your career. And as that got worst you just kept drinking more. So no, why the hell would I ever conclude that it was because of me? I did everything I could to comfort you.”

“But you never told me those fucking words. You know what it’s like to be in love with your best friend when the world tells you you shouldn’t? Th-that you’re some fucked up faggot who’s gonna be damned to all eternity? I don’t know if you got that lesson when you were in church growing up but I sure as hell did. And I told myself I’d never let it happen. That I would be fine just being a bachelor all my life. But no, you happened. And I was so convinced that you felt the same because of everything you’ve done for me when no one else would. So when I finally worked up the weeks, no, months of courage for me to tell you I loved you, you remember what you told me? ‘Yeah, that sounds about right.’ I think a full rejection would have been fucking kinder because at least I would have known for sure you weren’t interested instead of me being in this limbo.”

“Yeah, I remember that night. You were drunk when you said it. And at the time I didn’t know how honest of a drunk you were and I sure as hell wasn’t about to say something so personal in return. So why don’t you tell me now you love me before the alcohol kicks in too much.”

Rick opens his mouth to say it but finds they aren’t coming out. Maybe this shit was harder than it seemed without being intoxicated. His mind was struggling to formulate those words. Those three fucking simple words.

“See? Harder than it looks, huh?” Cliff sighs as he puts the keys in and turns on the ignition.

“I love you, Cliff.”

It was the first genuine smile Cliff gave Rick since before Rick told him he was getting married. “I love you, too, man. I just wished we figured this out months ago instead of in your driveway on my way out.”

“Yeah. I-I do, too. You would have made a great wife.”

“Ah shucks, you’re making me blush. But speaking of wives, why don’t you go take care of that fine creature in your bed. She doesn’t deserve to be tossed aside just because whatever we had got lost in translation.”

“Right, right. Here. Take this.” Rick digs his hand into his robe and pulls out a wad of cash and hands it to him. “Just something to get by for the next month. Hopefully you’ll find something. Don’t hesitate to use me for a reference, you know I’ll praise the hell out of you.”

“Thanks, man. You didn’t have to…” Cliff lifts himself up so he can pocket it in the back of his jeans and exhales deeply that he knows it’s time to get this over with. “Well. I guess this is good-bye. At least until I see you on the big screen. I’ll be first in line opening day.”

“I know you will. Bye, Cliff. Bye, Brandy.” Rick gives Brandy one last pat on the head and backs away so Cliff can pull out of the driveway and head off down the hill, never looking back.

Cliff took his time making his way out of the canyon. He didn’t have a need to rush off anywhere and he considered Brandy just as important to not drive recklessly with like he did with Rick. Turns out it’s a good thing he was seeing as a rush of police were making their way past him as he found his way out onto the main road. 

“Well, darling. How does a hike in Griffith Park sound before it gets too hot?”

“Arf!”

“Alright, you got it.” And with that he cranks up the radio and heads out into whatever the rest of his life had planned for him.

**Author's Note:**

> So going back to wanting to do the two different endings, I’m going to let this one stand on its own and write a separate sequel that will just pick up the same day dealing with the actual murder aftermath that should be its own contained story. But for now the only unhappy ending is these two idiots never getting their shit together.


End file.
